Pandora Says Pink Floyd Is Lying About Royalty Cut

On Monday, we wrote up Pink Floyd's in-print reunion
blasting Pandora's initiative to alter the royalty rate
it pays songwriters and accusing the company of sending out
misleading information about the effort.

Now Pandora has responded, sending out the following statement
saying they're the ones lying:

We have enormous respect for the members of Pink Floyd, and their
amazing artistic contributions. We also respect the genuineness
of their opinion.

Unfortunately, they have been given badly misleading information
– the result of a well-orchestrated campaign by the RIAA and
their lobbying arm to mislead and agitate artists.

A glaring example is the assertion that Pandora supports an “85%
artist pay cut." That is
simply not true. [emphasis ours]

We never, nor would we ever, support such a thing. In fact,
Pandora has suggested solutions that would guarantee no reduction
in artist payouts while also nurturing the growth of internet
radio -- a medium that is crucial to thousands of independent
musicians who don’t enjoy major label support or FM radio
exposure.

This much is true: Pandora is by far the highest paying form of
radio in the world and proudly pays both songwriters and
performers.

For perspective, to reach the exact same audience, Pandora
currently pays over 4.5 times more in total royalties than
broadcast radio for the same song. In fact, at only 7% of
U.S. radio listening, Pandora pays more in performance royalties
than any other form of radio.

UPDATE:
The musicFIRST coalition says the 85% figure is derived by
calculating the reduction in the portion of revenues for
royalties Pandora is said to be seeking — 50% to 8%.

A commenter also alerts us to the fact that "Pictures of
Matchstick Men" was a poor example since Lowery was not the
original songwriter, and the issue in question concerns
songwriter, not performer, fees.